Description

Shufflepuck Cantina is an air hockey game set in space inspired by the 1988 game Shufflepuck Cafe. The player is an astronaut who crashes on the planet Athanor in the Belus Quadrant after accidentally jumping through a wormhole. The only building on the planet is a casino where everyone plays air hockey. The astronaut joins the games to earn the money to buy the parts he requires to repair his space ship.

The casino consists of five floors with thirteen opponents in total. The game starts in the hall, but access to the other floors can be purchased gradually. Each new floor has harder opponents with larger rewards. There are different types of currencies used in the game. The main one is called credz. It can be acquired by winning games. The second one is the score, as a type of experience system to level up and access certain perks associated with levels. The third currency is tokens. These can be used to gamble on cards that offer additional rewards. Games are played against opponents in three types. The first one is 'duel' as a short game where the first player to reach a certain score, wins. More money and medals are offered for big score differences. The second is 'bet', similar to 'duel' but you gamble an amount of money of winning conditions. The third one is 'survival' where the goal is to get as many points as possible until the opponent scores. Each character also regularly offers mini quests with specific winning conditions. There are other types of missions based on the astronaut's achievements as well.

To unlock a space ship part, nineteen parts of a character's biography need to be bought, with a final quest. There is a store where additional purchases can be made, such as concept art, pucks, mallets and special strikes. Each character has a special type of special strike making the puck go fast of having it change direction quickly. The astronaut can use these as well. While playing power-ups, credz and tokens often appear on the playfield. Power-ups make the mallet bigger, double a point score or provide a shield, but can also have negative effects such as a small puck, a smaller mallet, and a double strike or a shield for the opponent. Characters are animated in 3D and they also provide conversations. There are over 200 levels of evolution in total, more than 350 missions, 120 mini quests and over 40 gadgets to upgrade.

The mobile version is identical in content, but different in the way it is offered. There is a free version with advertisements and in-app purchases for additional content and currency. There is also a commercial GOLD version that removes the ads, contains a number of starting credz and includes the Duranium card where the amount of credz is doubled for each victory. That version still has in-app purchases. For the free version advertisements are also removed after the first in-app purchase. The mobile version has an instant two-player mode.